Rain, rain, go away

This week has been filled with rain showers. On the rare moment it wasn't rainy or cloudy, it has been chilly. Definitely not badi weather.

Marion and I had plans to go into Zurich this morning to go to the Bürkliplatz Market and just wander around to learn our new city. The rain flushed that plan down the toilet.

So I decided to venture up to Volketswil to check out Kindercity.

Having no idea where Volketswil was, Garmin came to the rescue, again. As luck would have it, I passed Ikea on the way. My stomping grounds.

Kindercity wasn't too hard to find and we got there close enough to opening time (10 am) to find a parking spot. There also wasn't a huge line when we arrived.

The website said a lot of the exhibits had English instructions as well as German. Well, I didn't find that. However, having been to the Maryland Science Center, Port Discovery, and the New Jersey Children's Museum, this place wasn't hard to figure out.

I'd say Kindercity is a cross between all three of the places I mentioned. Nicer than the New Jersey Children's Museum (that place needs a facelift, stat), more technical than Port Discovery, but more play-oriented than the Science Center.

The first floor was the science area. It had the body area (skeletons, exhibits about the senses), the electricity area (tubes to use as phones, make a light turn on using your body to complete the circuit), and a movie area (camera, set, play with photoshop-like computers). Marion liked making the lights turn on. This floor was way over her head though.

So we went to the second floor. More Marion's speed. It was called something in German that I don't remember but basically this was the area for 2-7 year olds. They had silly mirrors, a scale, a balance area (beams and pods to stand on), a climbing wall, and a huge piano (thing Big).

We had fun with all of that but spent a huge chunk of our time at the water area. There was a huge contraption with water continually flowing through it. Basically, you turned a wheel to lift plastic balls on a pulley to the top where there was an octopus. The ball dropped through the octopus and slide down a slide. Then the ball traveled down two more slides that had moveable walls to change the course of the water and balls. After the slides, the balls stopped in a large pool, low enough for the toddlers to put their hands in.

Plastic balls in water? We could have spent hours there.

But we didn't. It was soon time for lunch and to get on the road again. And sadly, when we left we saw it was still raining. I don't think it has stopped since this morning. And I'm not completely sure it is ever going to stop!